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The Z80 had a massive presence in the 8-bit revolution, but I can’t remember any system with a Z8000. Did it ever hit this market?

TonyM
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ABM K
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    A related question, but perhaps not quite a duplicate, is this one. – Omar and Lorraine Sep 04 '23 at 07:39
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    There also was a "Z800" that wasn't very popular, too. The Z800 would be binary-compatible with the Z80, but the Z8000 won't. there also was an R800. – U. Windl Sep 04 '23 at 12:19
  • @U.Windl Z800 was, like it's renamed Z280 variant, not only quite late (1985/87) and never successful in any way but also only partiality compatible. The R800 was a reimplementation of the Z80 by ASCII with different bus timing. There were also quite a few more, more or less Z80 compatible designs. Including a V-Series variation with Z80 instructions instead of 8080. But that's all non related, or is it? – Raffzahn Sep 04 '23 at 15:42
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    You might enjoy this hobby project: the Clover computer. From all the way back in 2022. – Davislor Sep 04 '23 at 18:08
  • Did you mean the Zilog Z800? If so, fix your typo (too many zero digits). And linking to Wikipedia would be helpful. – Basil Bourque Sep 05 '23 at 00:00
  • wikipedia has a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z8000#Z8000_CPU_based_systems – Tommylee2k Sep 05 '23 at 07:00
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    @Raffzahn Z800 may be unrelated to the actual question, but when asking why the Z80 wasn't replaced by a better variant in home computers, the Z800 came into my mind before the Z8000 (or Z80000). – U. Windl Sep 05 '23 at 07:49
  • @U.Windl except that it was created 6 years after the Z8000, thus had even less impact. – Raffzahn Sep 05 '23 at 10:47

2 Answers2

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The Z8000 was in the Olivetti M20 system which came out around 1982.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_M20

As you might imagine with the IBM-PC and clones ascendant it didn't go very far.

Although Olivetti did try. I remember fondly one showing up to a computer show in a small town in southeastern British Columbia, Canada.

George Phillips
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    Coming out 6 months after the PC at twice the price, the M20 had little chance of beating it, even if it did have better performance. – Chris Dodd Sep 04 '23 at 00:24
  • Thanks, I imagine it will be a search to find one nowadays :) – ABM K Sep 04 '23 at 07:52
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    @ABMK I wouldn't qualify the M20 as homecomputer, more of what later was called a workstation. It did make quite some sales in Europe. There was also a Z8001 CPU board for the later 8086 based M24, so it could run M20 PCOS application. – Raffzahn Sep 04 '23 at 09:12
  • Ah, well, then no Z8000-homecomputer? – ABM K Sep 04 '23 at 09:15
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    The closest to a "home computer" maybe was the Commodore 900 (clearly, it was intended as a business machine, but from a "home computer vendor") that never saw the light of day. Not a home computer as well, but at least gaming: Some Namco arcade machines used the CPU. – tofro Sep 04 '23 at 09:52
  • It all depends on how much money a home has to invest on a computer. PCs initially weren't home computers until the clones drove down the prices and, yet, I knew people who had them at home.

    Of all Z8000-based systems, the one that's closest is the M20. And it looked great as well. It was a very serious computer.

     – rbanffy Sep 04 '23 at 09:53
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    You could also maybe count the Trump Card Z8000 co-processor card for the IBM PC into at least the peripherals of home computing – tofro Sep 04 '23 at 09:55
  • @tofro Oh, yes, completely forgot about the Trump card. – Raffzahn Sep 04 '23 at 11:01
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Did the Z8000 ever hit the home computer market?

No, the Z8000 was almost exclusively used in professional multi-user systems like various Unix (ZEUS) or Olivetti's mid range BCOS systems (*1). The only noteworthy non-Unix desktop systems would be

Of those only the first two sold in large numbers, mostly in Europe.

The Trump card demonstrated the Z8000 capabilities nicely by showing a 10-fold speed increase compared to the base PC for BASIC programs.

enter image description here

[Framed M20 Mainboard in my living room]

While I added it of course for bragging rights, there's also an interesting period detail to note: The memory.

For one it features only 128 KiB RAM on board, every thing else to go into the memory expansion slots. Thus during design management didn't believe people would need much more on average ... kinda like with the PC's original 64 KiB.

Even more telling that there are 8 possible ROM positions, good for up to 512 KiB ROM. Quite as if they imagined it to be delivered without floppies but BASIC and other software in ROM. When it was due to introduction only half was fitted with sockets and of those only two with 4 KiB were fitted. Unlike the IBM PC which not only still featured a full BIOS ROM but BASIC as well.

Perfect example from the period of moving from ROM based machines with optional floppies to disk based ones. Atari ST and Amiga being two more examples of that move, albeit still on the way as they used lots of ROM for their base OS.

*1 - Sure, with a 'reasonable' filled bank account even a Cray could be bought as home computer, but I would like to think of that as an extreme stretch, contrary to definition.

Raffzahn
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  • I read that the Z8000 was used for military equipment, because it was conceptually simple and thus quite reliable. – U. Windl Sep 04 '23 at 12:22
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    Even with unlimited money, I think a "home" computer shouldn't require changes to the home (thinking mainly of the electricity supply upgrade you'd need for that Cray). – Toby Speight Sep 04 '23 at 13:06
  • @U.Windl yes, it did, not at least due being available in hardened versions while delivering comparably high (integer) performance. But that isn't even near the questions focus. – Raffzahn Sep 04 '23 at 15:29
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    @TobySpeight A Y-MP can run of basic 230V mains :)) – Raffzahn Sep 04 '23 at 15:44
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    @Raffzahn A tour of your home to peruse the "artwork" framing the walls would be very interesting and enlightening. I have some period pieces but none are framed and displayed. – doneal24 Sep 04 '23 at 18:18
  • @TobySpeight While you're at it, adding the 200 gallons of cryogenic liquid fluorocarbon constantly circulating through the Cray-2. – Davislor Sep 05 '23 at 21:16
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    @doneal24 might sound more impressive than there is to see. My home is the usual man cave of someone with no desire to throw away perfectly good hardware or books. I've put only a few boards into frames. Was a short phase where I picked old 'masterworks' at car boot sales to replace the 'art' afterwards. Also only nice large boards, like PET, Apple II, IBM PC, said Olivetti, some arcade boards, etc. Figured it would make more sense than having them stored in boxes or scrapped for parts - but wasn't as great as they are now prime magnets for dust. – Raffzahn Sep 05 '23 at 21:33
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    I used to have the main board and graphics card of my old 286 PC hanging on a wall as art, but unfortunately I no longer have them. :( – occipita Sep 06 '23 at 21:33
  • Even the entry-level Y-MP EL draws 6 kW, which is more than standard domestic wiring allows in the UK - I would need a separate run from the consumer unit to run one. I couldn't find figures for other machines in the Y-MP series, but wouldn't expect them to draw any less. – Toby Speight Sep 12 '23 at 07:37